Is this a dragon? DO NOT POST PORN WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU STOP STOP STOP IT
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It's a puppy!
It's a wyvern!
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Ok I've done the wyvern thing with Ben before, but here it is for the whole crowd:
Wyvern is a bit of heraldry. I've seen ZERO evidence that, before Tolkien popularized (or re-popularized) the fantasy genre (and probably before Dungeons and Dragons made a monster out of literally anything), anybody has referred to a wyvern as a fantasy creature and not just an icon used in heraldry. The idea of there being a creature called a "wyvern" is a modern invention, and not part of any mythology.
Additionally dragons have been shown with two or four legs as far back as you go. St. George fought this thing:
Bam. Count those legs, motherfuckers!
The point is:
- Wyverns are lame
- Dragons are cool
- Dragons can have zero, two, or four legs
- Quetzalcoatl is a dragon
- Ben L thinks puppies can fly
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@blakeyrat I always wondered that myself. It has the shape of a dragon, the head of a dog with Down's Syndrome and fur on some parts of its body and scales on others. Of course, that movie came out in 1984 and people did a lot of cocaine back then. That has to have something to do with it.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
Ok I've done the wyvern thing with Ben before, but here it is for the whole crowd:
Wyvern is a bit of heraldry. I've seen ZERO evidence that, before Tolkien popularized (or re-popularized) the fantasy genre, anybody has referred to a wyvern as a fantasy creature and not just an icon used in heraldry. The idea of there being a creature called a "wyvern" is a modern invention, and not part of any mythology.
Additionally dragons have been shown with two or four legs as far back as you go. St. George fought this thing:
Bam. Count those legs, motherfuckers!
The point is:
- Wyverns are lame
- Dragons are cool
- Dragons can have zero, two, or four legs
- Quetzalcoatl is a dragon
- Ben L thinks puppies can fly
Wyvern ⊂ Dragon
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@polygeekery He self-identifies as a dragon.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
@polygeekery He self-identifies as a dragon.
https://memecrunch.com/meme/BJ4S3/well-played/image.gif?w=400&c=1
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@raceprouk But less cute. Though admittedly I only know anything about one of these images (Falcor).
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Difficulty++:
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Shadowrun solved that one with distinguishing between Eastern and Western Dragons.
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Dragon: No.
Loch Ness Monster: Yes.
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@blakeyrat Is this a dagger I see before me?
OK, that's a bit too obscure a joke, really. See here for context. Also, check the SotD thread today.
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@blakeyrat It self identifies as a Dragon Tank.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
- Quetzalcoatl is a dragon
ACtually — adjusts glasses — it is a feathered serpent.
@ben_lubar said in Is this a dragon?:
It's a puppy!
It reminds me of a Chinese dragon, kind of.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
St. George fought this thing:
I've once heard an interesting hypothesis about the whole St. George thing. It is likely that the event that started the myth involved one of the several species of monitor lizards:
The interesting thing about monitor lizards is that they have forked tongues, which they use for smelling just like snakes do. They also can get pretty large, and likely could be a pain in the ass to deal with. Combine that with a creature Europeans never saw before, and the word "dragon" is likely to be uttered.
I mentioned forked tongues, and there was a reason: even if the first graphical representation of the event was 100% exact, it's easy to see how subsequent artists who were inspired by that work might confuse the long, forked tongue for representation of flames, since they likely never saw a lizard with a forked tongue, and it's clearly not a snake since it has legs. Add on to that the human inclination to make the story bigger and more interesting, and the dragon became larger and larger in each new painting.
And there you go, a couple of centuries later you get St. George fighting a huge, fire breathing dragon. While, in fact, it was quite possibly just a pissed off monitor lizard.
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@onyx I think that it is futile to try and find the "one true representation" of the dragon fought by St George. There are many legends about saints fighting dragons, I think St Michael also did ( he's not a saint, he's an archangel...), there is at least one city in the south of France that has a local legend of a dragon (locally named as the Tarasque, but it's as much a dragon as the one fought by St George) and I've heard of several other similar local legends. I'd be tempted to put some older legends such as Hercules and the Lernean Hydra, or some Celtic legends as variations of this as well.
As far as I remember stuff that I read about that, much of the early legends on those things are really only about someone fighting a "monster", of an unspecified variety (except that it is not your standard giant bear/wolf/boar or other known animal). It is only as time goes by that this monster (which might have a specific local name or not) becomes a "dragon", and gets specific characteristics, the most notable and common one being the serpent-like overall aspects (with or without legs). There are representations, old and less old, where the dragon is a snake, nothing more. The number of legs, the fire breathing and the rest are just stuff that gets added as the story is told and retold...
I'd be interested to know at which point the monsters became specifically "dragons", though. As I said, there are sometimes local names that survive up until now and I'm pretty sure it would have been the same for all legends. Not sure how they became "dragons" (and how that word itself got invented, since it obviously never referred to a real thing!).
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@remi said in Is this a dragon?:
I think that it is futile to try and find the "one true representation" of the dragon fought by St George.
Agreed, I just found that potential explanation compelling, and I learned more about lizards in the process. Honestly, I'm personally not that bothered if it's a correct explanation, it's still a good conversation starter and I always admit it's just a guess anyway.
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I once heard that a possible source of the fire-breathing part of the legend was the fact that cows breathe out methane, and if it's dark and it catches fire, and you see where I'm going with this ;)
This was also a joke on a comedy quiz show, so if you believe it, you're an idiot.
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@da-doctah 403 Forbidden
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@raceprouk said in Is this a dragon?:
I once heard that a possible source of the fire-breathing part of the legend was the fact that cows breathe out methane, and if it's dark and it catches fire, and you see where I'm going with this
I don't think they breathe out methane, but they definitely fart a lot of it. And I guess in the dark when you can't see the animal right then you could be confused about which end is producing the flames. (Alternatively... rocket dragon! I think I'll call him Errol.)
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
I've seen ZERO evidence that [...] anybody has referred to a wyvern as a fantasy creature and not just an icon used in heraldry.
Beowulf mentions wyverns, the Crowcombe Green Man has carvings of one being fought, Thyrus is a part of Italian mythology. I'm sure there are more.
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@carrievs said in Is this a dragon?:
I don't think they breathe out methane, but they definitely fart a lot of it.
Well, OK, it's not technically breathing, but belching. Either way, it comes out the end the food goes in
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@zecc said in Is this a dragon?:
ACtually — adjusts glasses — it is a feathered serpent.
Nope. Dragon.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
@zecc said in Is this a dragon?:
ACtually — adjusts glasses — it is a feathered serpent.
Nope. Dragon.
'Quetzalcoatl' is a Nahuatl word that means 'feathered serpent'. Then again, Wikipedia does have it in the 'Dragons' category, so you're both right.
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@raceprouk Smaug's name means "the air over Beijing" and yet he's still a dragon. What does name have anything to do with species?
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
Wyverns are lame
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@raceprouk said in Is this a dragon?:
@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
Whatever he is, he's more of a dragon than this 'dragon':
But more than this dragon?
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@jazzyjosh Ugh no.
I saw that on like Netflix or some shit and it was like "The Dragon Maid" and I'm like "oh haha sounds like a funny comedy with hilarious hijinks" and it turns out that it's just another anime about underage girls with huge knockers (but it's not technically pedophilia because you see that're really 900 year old witches in 11-year-old bodies). Talk about ruining dragons.
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@blakeyrat I've only seen it during the Crunchyroll marathon, and even then maybe for two episodes. Just thought I'd compete with the references.
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@jazzyjosh Why would you watch even 10 seconds of that garbage?
Just the trailer made me want to lobby Trump to nuke Japan some more.
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@blakeyrat Because it was there? I didn't see a trailer for it, I just went to TwitchPresents and that was what was on.
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@jazzyjosh Those are half hour episodes, right? So you watched an hour of Japanese underage porn with dragon cosplayers.
You're remarkably casual about that.
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@blakeyrat No? I wasn't really actively watching it. It was on the second screen, possibly even in a hidden tab, muted while I played Dota.
I'm not really sure how to respond to whatever your next post is going to be.
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@jazzyjosh IT'S GOING TO BE DISGUST!
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@blakeyrat From what I'm not sure. Apparently I've tainted my entire character from even thinking about casually watching whatever the fuck Twitch wanted to put up on their stream during the two weeks this was happening.
Actually, no, I tainted my character from linking a reference to a show that was running during that, that I barely know anything about, but apparently the only reason I was watching was because I knew there was going to be an abundance of a specific trope in that show.
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
another anime about underage girls with huge knockers (but it's not technically pedophilia because you see that're really 900 year old witches in 11-year-old bodies)
I mean, there are younger characters, but most of the characters are in their 20s. The main character is a female professional Python dev.
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@magus said in Is this a dragon?:
The main character is a professional Python dev.
That's less believable than a dragon that turns into an underage girl with huge tits.
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@blakeyrat She even teaches one of the other dragons, who is obsessed with rules and perfection, how to program.
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@magus OK so two people on this forum are watching Japanese porno cartoons and then posting in my thread about dragons.
Great.
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@blakeyrat I'm just talking about dragons in a dragon thread. The other thing has nothing to do with anything I've said, just what you made yourself believe.
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@magus If it's learning Python:
- It has a terrible taste in programming languages
- (and this is critical) it is not a dragon. Dragons do not learn Python
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@blakeyrat said in Is this a dragon?:
Dragons do not learn Python
Because that would mean they would have to admit they're really just pythons with delusions of grandeur, amirite?